A former Alberta boys’ school teacher convicted of sexually abusing a student has been granted early release after a hearing in which he continued to deny he had sexual intent when he administered corporal punishment to the victim 30 years ago.
Paul Sheppard let out a deep breath and buried his face in his hands Tuesday when the Parole Board of Canada agreed to allow him to continue serving his prison sentence at an Ontario halfway house.
“I will honour your support and faith in me,” the 61-year-old doctor of education told the panel.
Sheppard is serving just under four years for sexually abusing Steacy Easton during the 1993-94 school year at Saint John’s School of Alberta when Easton was a Grade 7 student.
He later served as headmaster of Saint John’s, an austere private school southwest of Edmonton that practised corporal punishment and led students on gruelling wilderness expeditions.
On Tuesday, Sheppard told the panel he accepts that the spanking harmed Easton but insisted he did not touch Easton for a sexual purpose.
“You’re not here because you were convicted of assault … you were convicted of sexual offences,” parole board member Maureen Gauci reminded him.
“I still maintain my innocence to the offences for which I was convicted,” Sheppard replied. “However, I accept the conviction, I accept the consequences of the conviction.”
“So you don’t take accountability for the sexual components that you were convicted for?” Gauci asked.
“That’s correct,” he replied.
Previous conviction for spanking boys
Jurors found Sheppard guilty of sexual interference and invitation to sexual touching after a 2021 Wetaskiwin trial. Easton — an artist and author who uses they/them pronouns — said Sheppard spanked them more than 30 times during the school year, around a third of which included some form of sexual touching.
Court of King’s Bench Justice Debra Yungwirth found Sheppard also watched Easton shower and instructed them to touch his genitals. She concluded the Crown had proven 10-12 instances of sexual touching and sentenced Sheppard to six years in prison.
The sentence was reduced to 47 months on appeal after a two-judge panel found Yungwirth should have concluded there was just one instance of each offence.
The Crown did not appeal the decision despite a dissenting opinion that accused the majority of justices of engaging in “troubling myths and stereotypes” about sexual abuse victims.
Before Saint John’s, Sheppard taught at England’s Ampleforth College. He later found himself at the centre of that institution’s sexual abuse scandal. He was charged in 2014 with indecently assaulting multiple boys at the school in 1989 but was ultimately acquitted.
On Tuesday, Sheppard also acknowledged a previous conviction for spanking young boys. The conviction was not discussed during Sheppard’s trial or sentencing.
The panel heard that in his early 20s, Sheppard served as a police officer in Stratford, Ont., where he was charged with spanking six boys aged 10 to 14. Most of the victims were children of single mothers who Sheppard met through his police work. In 1987, he admitted to spanking the boys with their pants both on and off, using a yardstick, a leather belt or his hand.
He pleaded guilty to six charges of assault in 1987 and was sentenced to two years probation, news reports at the time said. Another assault charge and five charges of sexual assault were withdrawn.
Sheppard resigned from the police service shortly after charges were laid. He said a superior told him to stop seeing the boys, but he was charged after another officer learned of the allegations.
He described himself as a naive young officer who believed he was acting “in loco parentis” (meaning “in the place of a parent”) at the request of the boys’ mothers.
“I realize as I look back on it, it was completely inappropriate for me to be involved in those families,” he said, adding he himself was spanked as a child.
Sheppard enrolled in a teacher training program while on probation in 1988. He went on to teach and administer schools around the world — but insisted he never practised corporal punishment after 1994.
“I realize now I shouldn’t have blindly followed the (Saint John’s) policy but rather questioned the harm the students were subjected to,” he said.
“In their victim impact statement, Steacy wrote … that both the school and I perpetrated violence on them,” he said.
“When one considers that corporal punishment was in use at the school, they are correct. I am ashamed of how I treated them. I was ignorant to a person struggling with their identity who was obviously in pain and suffering in a school that was, on many levels, incapable of supporting them.”
Victim ‘surprised’ by decision
Gauci and fellow board member Alison Scott concluded Sheppard could serve the remainder of his sentence under supervision in the community without putting the public at risk.
The St. Catharine’s parole office supported Sheppard’s application for day parole. Correctional Service Canada was opposed, citing his “lack of accountability” for the sexual offences.
Sheppard promised he would continue to take whatever programming is required of him and abide by all conditions, including having no contact with any boys under 18 and meeting with a counsellor specializing in sex offences.
Easton, for their part, was “surprised by the unwillingness of the panel to significantly push back on his refusal to acknowledge a sexual component to what he claims were simply acts of discipline.”
The news of Sheppard’s previous conviction left them wondering how Sheppard was able to become a teacher in the first place.
Parole is typically available to federal offenders one-third of the way through their prison term. Sheppard was granted bail pending appeal and began serving his sentence in September 2023.
Corporal punishment was banned in Canadian schools in 2004.
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